Nutrition and Diabetes
Diabetes management
The Diabetes Self-Management Workshop is taught 2 hours once a week for six weeks, in various community settings, such as churches, community centers, libraries, and hospitals. People with type 2 diabetes attend the workshop in groups of 12 to 16 years old. The workshops are facilitated from a highly detailed manual by two trained peer leaders, one or both of whom have diabetes.
Topics covered include: 1) techniques for treating symptoms of diabetes, fatigue, pain, hyper / hypoglycemia, stress, and emotional issues such as depression, anger, fear, and frustration; 2) appropriate exercise to maintain and improve strength and endurance; 3) healthy eating 4) appropriate use of medications; and 5) work more effectively with healthcare providers. Participants will make weekly action plans, share experiences, and help each other solve problems they encounter when creating and running their self-management program. Doctors, diabetes educators, dietitians, and other health professionals both at Stanford and in the community have reviewed all the materials in the workshop.
Developed by Stanford University
The original Diabetes Self-Control Program was developed in Spanish. After successful results were found with that program, the Stanford Patient Education Research Center received a grant from the California Foundation for Health Care for the randomized, controlled study to test the effectiveness of the workshop for English speakers. The study was completed in 2008.
Six months after the workshop, participants had significant improvements in depression, hypoglycemic symptoms, communication with doctors, healthy eating, and reading food labels. They also had significant improvements in patient activation and self-efficacy. At 12 months, DSMP participants continued to demonstrate improvements in depression, communication with physicians, healthy eating, patient arousal, and self-efficacy. There were no significant changes in utilization or A1C (A1C values were already in the desirable range at the start of the study for most participants).